SPCR

I bought a used, fully modded coolcases.com Chenbro Genie for quite cheaply recently and am going to use it in my new quad-core / gaming build. The case actually came with a lot of (all or mostly) Panaflo fans - 2x 120mm in the front, 2x 120mm on one side, 1x 120mm and 1x 92mm on the other side, and 1x 120mm and 1x 92mm in the back. There's a fan controller in the front for all of those fans, and I'm pretty sure that they would be pretty quiet all at 7V, but I will most likely take out at least a couple of them.

My other relevant parts:

- C2Q Q9450 processor in some sort of passively-cooled high-end motherboard (have to decide what to replace my Gigabyte P35, which I RMA'ed back to newegg, but that's a different story)
- Scythe Ninja Mini... probably just passively cooled if it stays cool enough, or with the standard 80mm fan.
- EVGA 8800GTS... will probably be my loudest component for a while, but I plan on replacing it later and will only get a 3rd party heatsink for it when I upgrade
- Enermax MODU82+ / 625W - overkill wattage, but so damn quiet
- WD Velociraptor hard-drive (pre-ordered - will be my main)
- WD 640Gb / 7200RPM - the nice, quiet model
- 1x DVD-RW drive
- Akasa Noisebuster foam - it's just so cheap that I figured that I might as well try it.

What I was thinking of doing with the case, and please critique me or make suggestions about these:

- Take out a couple of case fans... I was thinking to definitely leave the two front intake ones and the 120mm in the back (which is next to the heatsink). Probably leave the 92mm in the top part of the back - it'll keep the hard-drives cool if I keep them in the back and help with keeping the PSU cool; still, probably unnecessary if I move the HDD's. Take out one or both of the right panel 120mm fans, unless I move the hard-drives in the front. Take out of replace one of the left-panel fans... one of them is intake and another is the other way, which seems a little weird to me.
- Replace one of the Panaflos with a quiet Nexus 120mm that I have - but which one to replace? I don't think the Nexus is very high airflow, so maybe just a side-panel one...
- Buy a thin layer of flat foam from McMaster. Going by this wonderful thread, I'm thinking at least something like 8514K115 (1/8" Polyurethane Foam). And I'd put that under some of that cheap Akasa foam, which is light, about 1/2" thick at its peak, and egg-cartony. I'd appreciate some other recommendations for something probably up to 1/4" and fairly cheap to have as my bottom layer.
- Put the damping material on all sides
- Also, that linked thread above mentions using a baffle... can someone show me a link or explain a little about that?
- Mount the hard-drives in the top back 3.5" cage, just with plain rubber grommets. Maybe if they're still very audible (doubt it - they're already quiet drives and far in the back), then I'll suspend them (using the cheapest, easiest methods at my disposal) in the 2 unused 5.25" bays.

Any comments / concerns / recommendations, based on the above ideas? Thanks!

Your plan will provide a quiet case, but it won't challenge SPCR's top silencers. Call it a good foundation for later improvements. The first change I'd make would be a full-size Ninja, not the Mini. There's plenty of room in the Genie, so why not use the larger HSF?

I've had a Genie (also from Coolcases, but with my mods) for years. There are a couple of threads here about it, though both describe watercooled builds. Still, I hope you can find some useful information in them. BTW, I just checked the older thread and saw that some of the photo links are dead. Sorry!
* Project QBG
* Mark 2

HammerSandwich wrote:Your plan will provide a quiet case, but it won't challenge SPCR's top silencers. Call it a good foundation for later improvements. The first change I'd make would be a full-size Ninja, not the Mini. There's plenty of room in the Genie, so why not use the larger HSF?

Money. However, now I am strongly considering upgrading to a Thermalright Ultra-120, either Extreme or normal (anyone selling theirs? ). I truly, truly hate the plastic mounting crap for 775 motherboards, and Thermalright has a bolt-through kit that would get rid of that. I'm pretty sure that I've already mounted it badly (i.e., the nobs haven't been twisted completely to their normal position after I took the HSF off once and put it back on when I replaced a DOA motherboard).